Nordea Asset Management will continue to operate in Luxembourg Google Street View

Nordea Asset Management will continue to operate in Luxembourg Google Street View

UBS acquires Nordea

The big business news, reported by Reuters among others, is that Swiss bank UBS has agreed a deal to acquire part of the Luxembourg-based private banking business of Nordea. The transaction is planned for the second half of 2018. Nordea had some 13 billion euros ($16.13 billion) in assets under management in 2017, according to the reports. A statement from UBS Luxembourg’s René Mottas said that the transaction “allows us to move our business of servicing Nordic Wealth Management clients to a leading position in Luxembourg and in Europe.”

 

Hammond wants “closest possible future relationship”

Philip Hammond, the UK chancellor of the exchequer, has said that he hope his country could continue to enjoy free and smooth trade with the European Union post-Brexit. In an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Hammond stressed that a bespoke deal would be requored to maintain London’s position as a global financial centre, and that without such a deal business could leave the EU and head for New York or Singapore. “Financial services, and sevices in general, has to be a part of our future relationship with the European Union,” he said. “We are taking two completely interconnected and aligned economies with high levels of trade between them, and selectively, moving them, hopefully very modestly, apart.”

 

Court rules against “gay test”

The European Court of Justice ruled on Thursday that psychological tests cannot be used to assess asylum applications who claim they are being persecuted for their sexuality. NPR reports that Hungarian immigration officials had administered such tests on a Nigerian man. The range of tests he underwent included the ‘Draw-A-Person-In-The-Rain’ test and the Rorschach and Szondi tests. The court stated that the tests represented “a disproportionate interference in the private life of the asylum seeker.”